


Fires and crickets in the neon lights

by StrawberryPeach



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: M/M, Not Beta Read, and some Yusuf feels because why not, because bittersweet is my third name, but half are just mentioned, i barely read this guys, i don't even know what this is, it's a whole bunch of nothing, it's basically word vomit, just some Nicky thoughts, nicky goes sad, then joe makes it better, this is all very vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:34:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26998999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrawberryPeach/pseuds/StrawberryPeach
Summary: Nights under the stars seem lost to time when he walks in the glare of artificial light. He feels suddenly lost without his north in the night. But then he has his sun to guide his way, to start again, come morning.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	Fires and crickets in the neon lights

**Author's Note:**

> First work I post and it's... This. What is this? I don't know. I just took Nicky for a walk. Sorry, I'm returning him now.  
> Seriously tho, I just got this sudden idea pop up while listening to music, realised it kinda had the shape of a fic and proceeded to slap my thoughts into the keyboard until I felt that was it. Then thought hey it's done... I could maybe post this? And here we are. Regrets will come later (that's a lie, I'm already regreting this).
> 
> Some things that should be known:  
> \- English is not my first language  
> \- This is not beta'd

The day had been a bright one, the sun prideful and high and insistent in his presence. Warmth permeating their clothes and packs, while a mild breeze pulled the bite out of it, brushing their faces and the back of their necks to dry the lonesome droplets of sweat that could come under the spring sky. And spring it was, pungent in greens and pollen, sweet flowers sprouting in clusters along the thickening bushes and growing grass. Bees and flies and little red ladybugs buzzing about. It was warm and vibrant and quiet. For once it was quiet and calm.

And then it was night. They were camping at the edge of a clearing, a small one, flanked by a narrow but lively creek that glistened cristal by day and silver under the moon. Rocks under moss and plants and spiders hanging from their webs in between the spades of grass, all in absolute silence as the water trickled unobtrusively in the background. He watched the fire crackling pleasantly, a few pieces of their recent catch roasting on the spit still, the last ones. They had had their fill of poorly seasoned roasted meat and what bread they had left from their last run through a market, a handful of days past, so these last pieces would serve as their breakfast come morning.

Nicolò was minding the cooking, sitting close to the fire and getting swaddled in warmth, light, the smell of grease and thin smoke. In his hands he had a slender piece of wood, slowly being carved into a vague animal shape under the blade of his knife. It was idle time passing, half the attention on the food, a quarter on his surroundings. There was the solid warmth of Yusuf pressed to his side, his own leisure doings in the form of a nearly consumed piece of charcoal clasped loosely in his smudged fingers, easygoing lines shaping bits and pieces of life on a page of his well worn drawing book. Their own sounds unobtrusive as the trickling water, whispers and scrapes shared behind the cracks of fire.

Then there was the sharp ring of laughter, clear and chiming, accompanied soon after by another. Nicolò looked from his task to the smiles of his sisters, wide and tired and beautifully unconcerned. They had chosen to do that night what they had all been neglecting for days and dedicated their poor light to mending their wear. Andromache was pulling impatiently at the thread sewing a tear in her scarf shut, while Quynh moved her hands confidently around the leather of one of their boots. A temporary patch, in hopes next town over would have a decent pair to offer in trade. 

There was no stopping the indulgent smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, or the cheeky press of his side deep against Yusuf’s soft comfort, his head dropping on his shoulder, uncaring of the shifting of his arm as he drew and drew and drew. He couln’t mind it, not an ounce, when he felt Yusuf’s body vibrate in soft, indulgent chuckles and the weight of his head against Nicolò’s.

No, he couldn’t mind the bugs buzzing and the smoke rising or the light dimming or his own boots approaching the need for repairs or the last of their bread being gone or the hardness of the dry ground under his back as he slept that night or the struggle that was to come as the spring rains closed in on them. Not with Quynh’s bright, sharp smile flashing across the fire at him, Andromache jovial, laughter-embedded curse at the needle snapping in her rough fingers, Yusuf’s all encompassing care and passion, his smile and voice and eyes and unfaltering love giving him all reason to just keep going.

He looked up, still leaning against his beloved’s side, up to the dark sky of the night, smattered in copious silver stars around one bright, full moon. Pale and cool and ever present, even when their own crackling fire dwindled and ceased, the moon would still be up for them that night. Just like the crickets and the frogs, and his sisters murmuring voices at arm’s reach and Yusuf’s arms around him, snug and comforting like nothing else could be. Like the sun would be, come morning.

With nights like this, he could stop caring for a while. He closed his eyes, taking in the sounds and quiet, the smell of fire and meat and dust and grass. He could let time pass, not care for it. He could allow that for himself in moments like this.

...

There’s laughter again, but it’s jarring, shrill and disruptive, alien. A loud honk and the rumble of a bus nearby. Cracks and sways in his sight bring him back to a starless sky, pale and dull and distant, like the sheen of artificial light is keeping a blanket of plastic between him and the endless expanse of black and silver and white. 

He coughs an itch from his throat after a car with faulty escape rushes past them; the cacophony of noise, human and machine, creating a swirl of mundane chaos that swadles his thoughts, his mind perpetually wrapped in white noise as they walk quickly, stepping one side and the other to avoid people with their attention elsewhere.

Another honking car, the redoubled answer from a truck, and Nicky has to close his eyes briefly, breathe out, step closer to Joe at his side. Yes, Joe is at his side, warm and solid while he finds his footing in the swaying flow of the city. A knowing hand clasps fingers to his hip, grounding and persistent. He presses to his side, eyes searching for focus, away from the indistinguishable mass of cars and people closing in on them like vultures to a rotting corpse.

He finds his focus, briefly. There’s Andy a few paces ahead of them, looking back. Because Nicolò stopped, and Joe is now prompting him to start walking again. Right.

Because it’s nighttime, but it’s loud and jarring and messy, and they’re trying to get home. A home that’s just a safe house, a ratty apartment at the edge of the city, where they’ll try to sleep their last job away, where he’ll be trying to ignore the neverending noise of the city and the perpetual glare of artificial lights breaking in through the windows. Where there’ll be no stars and no crickets nor frogs.

And now he’s missing his step, clutching at Joe’s shirt with a fist, trying not to dwell on all he’s missing. Because then he’ll think of stars and fires and crickets but also a brother and a sister and a gift. He tries not to think of it, of how they haven’t watched a football match in months and how they stack their first aid kit with religious zeal and unfamiliar worry. How now he’s watching just one sister walk ahead of them, how her laughter is tired and bitter more often than it is jovial and free. How they’ve gone out to find her sitting alone on a bench, eyes gone miles away and centuries back.

He’s adrift now, watching her walk ahead, shoulders down in an exhaustion that goes so far beyond jobs and years and miles. He’s lost in the mundane chaos and the lights that rob him of his sky and stars, buoying in a constant state of alert and hurry and connection to everything and everywhere and everyone that leaves him hollow and stretched thin and cracking at the edges. He’s overwhelmed by all of this while cut loose from his other realities that sometimes seem to have never existed at all. Gone, all of them, up like dust in the wind along his crickets and his stars. Gone and buried like every second he breathes now too. Every step Andy takes ahead of him is already gone and buried and there’s nothing he can do to stop time to take it all away at some point-

“Nicky”

He breathes in sharply, deeply. Blinking dry eyes away from the city lights and towards Joe- _Yusuf_ , at his side.

Through the corner of his eye he sees Andy stop and turn to them again, so he nods quickly and tries to resume their walk, but Joe’s hand wraps around his wrist, soft but unyielding. 

“Nicolò” he calls him softly, in that voice of his that knows how to filter through every single crack of Nicky’s person, seeping in and coating his mind and soul, inside out. So he looks back at him, at those dark, dark eyes that hold the world and the skies and all the stars that Nicky misses so much.

“Are you alright, love?” he’s asked, in words that take him a second or two to realize are not for the people around them to understand. It’s old words, so old that they burrow in his chest and dig up those crickets and crackling fires he had been trying to lock back down. He tries to keep them hidden, tries to shake his head in dismissal before that dark, starry night staring into him finds the cracks in his own dull, starless eyes.

He can’t, he can’t hide from the abysmal depths of those eyes and he knows this, has known for centuries. He lets his cracked blue shimmer, he lets the maddening chaos and the barren silence in him come afloat. Does nothing about it because he knows he’s an open book to Yusuf’s avid eyes. Evident are the empty spaces where the fires and crickets should be, where football matches and french curses should ring, where stars should shine and sharp wit and eyes and smiles had been. Empty spaces that sometimes feel hollower than ever.

Before he can voice any of these thoughts, Joe smiles at him. Understanding, indulgent, kind and loving in ways Nicky should be accustomed to. Maybe should be, but is not. He’ll never be, he should never be. Because this radiance, this warmth and absolute benediction should never be taken for granted. Yusuf smiles at him just how he knows he will, eyes crinkling but still tinted in concern.

“You’ve gotten nostalgic, my Nicolò” he says, still in those old words that sting just as much as they soothe, with one gentle hand brushing the side of his face with such intent yet such light touch he feels it caress his very soul.

And he has, yes. Maybe he has. Let this irrational bout of nostalgia take him by surprise, pull him under. They all do, it’s impossible not to, considering all the things they have to miss and yearn for and reminisce. It’s just that, sometimes, they hurt more than they bring smiles.

So he nods, then. Shrugs one shoulder, offers a rueful little smile.

Yusuf’s hand travels again to his hip, brings him closer and steers him forward again. He sees Andy looking at them, and he misses her for no apparent reason. _No apparent reason_ , because he refuses to acknowledge his true thoughts. Instead he accepts tonight will be a hard night to conceal sleep, hopes one of them will indulge him in pointless conversation until he tires and gives upon these inopportune ideas.

“You know” Yusuf starts, a familiar lilting tone in his voice that sparks a little hope in Nicky’s heart “I think I saw that gelato place we tried last time we were here. It’s still open!” 

Andy falls in step with them, a knowing smile on her face “Oh, you think we could stop by?”

“No need” Joe pulls his phone from the back pocket of his jeans “I’ll ask Nile to order”

“I want pistachio,” Andy says immediately, as if making sure they wouldn’t ask anything else instead. Her expression, so intense in the face of the wrong gelato flavor, melts some frosted corners in Nicky’s heart and transforms them into bright pools of warm endearment.

Joe hums and nods, sending the message and pocketing the phone again.

“There,” he says lightly, winking quickly at Nicky, knowing very well what loops his mind is doing.

Like how nice it is to have such treats at hand, something he loves and cherishes, something that brings good memories to him. A text away, because it is that simple now, and because there, in that dark apartment at the edge of the city, awaits not only artificial light and noise but also his sister. His little sister. A bright, enthusiastic smile and soft eyes and an impossibly curious mind. A charming wit and gentle optimism embedded with a crackling spirit that jumps and dances to their tune with a joyful enthusiasm that’s as invigorating as it’s endearing.

So yeah, maybe it’s loud and overwhelming, but also vibrant and exciting. A world that is organized and safe in its pure volatile, invasive chaos. And he misses a brother but the world is painfully connected all around after all. And yes he fears for his sister but he’ll just love her all the harder for it. 

And he misses another sister, horrors of it, but he’ll not lose the hope they still have, not after holding onto it until now. And the world goes fast, so fast, too fast sometimes, but it has given him another kindred spirit to nurture and care for. He’s got a little sister waiting for him in a ratty apartment now, asking for gelato of his favorite flavours because of course she already knows what his favorite flavors are. 

There’s no stopping the indulgent smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, or the cheeky press of his side deep against Yusuf’s soft comfort. He can’t see his stars in the sky now, but he knows they’re still up there, just like the moon and just like the sun will be, come morning. And if he misses them, he just needs to remind himself that they’re also right beside him, bright and silver and eternal in the dark eyes of his very own sun. 

A sun that grants him a beam of pure light in the quick kiss pressed to his cheek as they walk back home.

**Author's Note:**

> If you got to the end, I really hope you liked it. Thanks for reading!


End file.
